A total of 43 participants were included in the study. Of these, 34 participants were involved in four FGDs that comprised eight to ten discussants. In addition, five KIIs, and four IDIs were conducted (Table 1).
Existing policies implementation status
The assessment of the implementation status was aimed at identifying implementation bottlenecks and enabling conditions in preventing domestic VAW. Through the narratives of participants, the details of these barriers and enablers are described as follows.
Barriers of community-based intervention implementation
The operationalization of existing policy documents and research evidence recommendations to prevent domestic VAW have been affected by various factors. Participants mentioned various types of barriers at different levels. Some of the major barriers include financial constraints, lack of commitment from local politicians, lack of awareness of existing programs, poor planning, poor implementation limited collaborations, poor integration, entrenched and skewed community traditional gender-norms, and competing priorities of local politicians and other key stakeholders.
Financial constraints: Financial constraints was one of the most frequently cited barriers to policy implementation. Participants explained that the government has a budgetary policy that mandates every sector to allocate two percent of their annual budget for gender related activities, but this is hardly followed, as the allotted budget is not used for the intended purposes.
One female discussant in the FGDs said:
“…no special budget is allocated for gender equality or domestic violence prevention in our setting...During annual budget allocation in our administration, they address the issue of women and child affairs later after other sectors’ budget allocation…” (F, 38 years, FGDp1)
Another barrier to intervention implementation was lack of commitment from local politicians. Participants indicated that domestic VAW prevention issues are only documented in policy documents, but very limited practical attentions is given to it in most settings. Practical intervention to address domestic VAW issues are not implemented. Additionally, participants were of the view that gender mainstreaming has not been actively implemented because of the apparent indifference of many stakeholders, lack of commitment and attention from local politicians, and poor involvement of the implementers, and lack of full engagement within the community are some of the barriers that affect implementation of existing policy.
One male FGD participant remarked:
“…To ensure gender equality, politicians should teach and serve as role models. They should start from their offices and homes. Sadly, they are not good role models. They are not also working but talking and giving only paper value. Generally, implementation is so poor …” (M, 49 years, FGDp1).
The lack of political will and commitment also manifest in apathy among officialdom to consciously develop appropriate and well-targeted panning for domestic violence prevention activities. One female FGD participant commented, thus;
“…they (top officials) do not consider gender equality and domestic violence against women during planning. So, we do not have a plan to do this type of trainings to reduce domestic violence against women, and also we did not do anything based on plan ahead.’’ (F, 30 years, FGDp 6 )
Poor implementation collaboration and integration with existing program
Evidence from participants indicated that existing policies and evidence-based interventions on domestic VAW prevention could not be implemented due to lack of collaboration among sectors.
A male FGD participant mentioned:
“…if we work in collaboration with health extension programs, implementation of violence against women prevention will be an easy task. It will not be an extra burden for us, and it will bring about the needed change…” (M, 55 years, FGDadv1)
In addition to poor collaboration, other participants mentioned poor integration of domestic violence prevention activities with existing programs, such as health extension and others. The following quotes illustrate poor collaboration and integration:
“…no one has been supporting us so far…We could not find any sector working on violence against women to collaborate with, or integrate our plan with…everybody speaks about program integration…but there is very little practical implementation to prevent domestic violence against women. Everything is pushed on the health extension workers without adequate support…” (F, 33 years, FGDp6)
“… there is a huge gap integrating efforts to prevent violence against women. Perhaps, one sector may take the responsibility of leading a particular initiative, but may not be well integrated with other sectors to address violence against women at the grass root level…” (M, 53 years, KII001)
Traditional gender-norms: Almost all participants agreed that the prevailing attitude on traditional gender-norms in the community serves as a major barrier to implementing existing policies and interventions to promote gender equality and prevention of domestic VAW. The community has an ingrained culture that supports traditional gender-norms, for instance, there is lack of positive attitude towards gender equality, and absence of male involvement on domestic violence prevention activities. It was evident that community members and other stakeholders, such as politicians, local leaders, religious leaders, elders, and others, all lack information and understanding of the negative effect of domestic VAW and gender inequality norms. For instance, most people in the community as well as stakeholders perceive wife-beating as a normal practice. One of a male FGD participant remarked:
“…to ensure gender equality, politicians should be taught to be role models. They should start from their office and homes. But they have not been a good example for others. They have not also been working as talking, only ‘paper value’…” (M, 55 years, FGDadv1)
Competing priority and poor coordination mechanism
Most of the study participants agreed that stakeholders focus on competing priorities to the detriment of domestic violence prevention programs. In addition, there exists several committees with many tasks, making it difficult to implement domestic violence prevention programs. Participants also mentioned that lack of independent responsible body affects the awareness creation and undermines serious preventive efforts.
One of the female discussants in an FGD said:
“…overly busy schedules, lack of independent responsible body (institution) to coordinate this (domestic violence prevention issue) is a problem, because Women and Children Affairs Office is almost not functioning well, they are only implementing politics, very superficially. No-one is asking the women their life experiences at their home…” (F, 31 years, FGDP3).
In addition, one of the key informants indicated: “…Women’s and Child Affairs Offices has no structure at the bottom (Kebele level) to engage the community very well…” (F, 35 years, KII002)
Enabling conditions for community-based interventions
Participants commented that implementers have not taken advantage of the enabling conditions to operationalize existing policies into interventions to prevent domestic VAW and promote gender equality norms in real life settings. The enabling factors include existing policy frameworks, existing Women Development ‘Army’ (WDA), health extension program, social organization (Equib), Women and Child Affairs Office, School Gender-Clubs and Women Leadership are reported in the KIIs, IDIs and FGDs. The existing enabling environment can be facilitated through integration, collaboration and engaging communities in the implementation program. The potentially enabling and favorable contexts are further explained below:
Availability of policy framework and government willingness: Existing policy documents related to violence against women
Some supportive policy documents include internationally ratified convention and government policies related to domestic VAW. The Government of Ethiopia is a signatory to various international and regional conventions, charters and protocols. Some of the relevant conventions include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) (22); Conventions on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Article 1 (33); the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, Article 3 (1–2) (34); Beijing Platform for Action (1995); Committed to Safe guarding Women’s Rights (35), and Maputo Plan of Action (2016–2030), which gives due attention to the implementation of international, regional and national legislations in order to create a conducive environment for getting reproductive health care to prevent domestic VAW (20). To fulfil the ratified international conventions’ requirements, the government of Ethiopia has incorporated women’s issue into different policy documents. The National Population Policy (1993) has stipulated the minimum legal age for marriage for both sex as 18 years, aimed at improving women’s lives (36). Again, the Constitution (1994) has clearly addressed the protection of human rights from its Article 14–18 (the right to life, security and prohibition against inhuman treatments). Other articles in the Constitution, Article 25 states: “that all person are equal before the law”, Article 35 (1–9) states: “women have equal rights with men”, and Article 34 (1–5) talks about marital, personal and family rights (37).
Moreover, Article 4 of the Criminal Code of Ethiopia under Proclamation No. 414/2004, emphasizes equality before the law. Article 561 criminalizes any injuries and sufferings caused to women (38). Furthermore, conditions of marriage, and equal rights of access to- and control over resource is clearly stated in the revised family laws of Ethiopia (39). The government of Ethiopia launched a gender mainstreaming program in different sectors with guiding mainstreaming manual to serve as an implementation guide or enforce the existing policies (40). In addition, the Ministry of Health has developed the standard operating procedures to respond to and prevent sexual violence. Though all these laws are in place, the public awareness is very poor including poor implementation (41), and this can be rectified by trainers’ and participants’ modules for future awareness creations (42).
Governmental structure and progressive willingness
The Ethiopian government has placed due attention and commitment on the affairs of women. For this reason, a Ministry of Women and Child Affairs has been established with accompanying sectors on District levels. It is mandated to safeguard and address issues of women and children. This government commitment contributes to women rights protection, follow-up of vulnerable women, and application of necessary measures on gender equality and preventing VAW. The government of Ethiopia has been giving several opportunities progressively, and top political positions to women in the country. Therefore, working in collaboration with the Women and Child Affairs Office can be strategic to sustain the intervention.
Existing Women Development ‘Army’ (WDA): The government has designed a policy and small functional units, called One to Five (1:5) WDA groups, for both females and males. Each WDA group could be made up of 30 to 40 members. Almost all the participants suggested that these two existing groups (women and men development ‘army’ groups) offer good opportunities for the implementation of interventions with an optimal cost and as a culturally compatible approach. The WDA group being the most active group, can be an important entry point for community-based action, easy access to the women, encourage active participation and enable close follow-ups to be led by the health extension workers. One of the key informants commented:
“…women gather in one house every month to have various discussions on their issues, some of which include savings ( Equib ) and small income generating activities. This committee fights for women’s rights and also plays a crucial role in the prevention of domestic violence. The women development ‘army’ are working in collaboration with the health sector, mainly health extension program…” (F, 35 years, KII002)
Health Extension Program: This is an existing program under the health sector which staffed with only female health extension workers. These women are taken through intensive training on several community health packages of services which equips them, to organize culturally appropriate sessions for women at the household level to improve women’s and children’s health in the community. This has enhanced the health sector’s implementation of their program to improve maternal and child health, and also prevent domestic violence. A key informant mentioned:
“…although we have not been working that much with good collaboration, the health sector has a community-based health education program, which has been delivered by health extension workers. If sectors could integrate it would not be difficult to tackle domestic violence. The HEP, itself is a good enabler if we use it for the future. The health sector is an important implementer better than other sectors. The HEWs are the leader of the women development ‘army’…” (F, 35 years, KII002 & F, 26 years, KII009)
Social organization (Equib): Equib is an informal local savings and loans scheme, which is led by a community appointed committee. It also functions as a social gathering that holds discussion sessions on social issues. This scheme supports members of the community and also serves as an avenue for effective conflict resolution within the community. It is bound by the community traditional governance culture that can be used as an enabling condition to implement domestic VAW prevention interventions.
Work in collaboration with School Clubs: The school gender-clubs work in collaboration with school teachers and directors to prevent child marriage. They identify potential child marriage victims whose family might have made such arrangements and report to the justice office for them to take necessary actions. For instance two key informants mentioned:
“… schools have committees to prevent harmful traditional practices and early marriages…have been doing a good job…playing a pivotal role in preventing early marriages. This method can be adopted…it will have a great role to play in preventing domestic violence against women in the community…” (F, 35 years, KII002 & M, 53 years, KII001)
The assessment of barriers to and enablers of the implementation were guided by the CFIR (25), which is described in detail in the method section. The summary of findings is illustrated in the framework (Fig. 1).